Lance Barrett-Lennard, head of the Vancouver Aquarium’s Cetacean Research Program, told Canada.com the whale’s thick layer of blubber is doing its job even in death. The whale’s body is good at keeping in heat, but it’s also proving efficient in keeping in the heat and methane gas generated by its decomposing innards.

“It’s kind of like your compost box,” said Barrett-Lennard.

That gas build-up can have some pretty explosive results. There are plenty of videos online showing dead whales erupting into fountains of guts when they’re sliced into and the gas escapes.

“They can be pretty impressive geysers of goo,” said Barrett-Lennard. However, he added, it’s more likely that the rotting flesh will slowly allow gas to escape and the whale will deflate like an old balloon.

He witnessed it himself when he had his own close encounter with a dead, beached grey whale.

“I could hear the gas oozing out of it, it sounded like a pressure cooker,” he said. It also doesn’t smell particularly pleasant.

In Newfoundland, it’s the responsibility of municipalities to deal with whale carcasses that wash up on their shores. Barrett-Lennard said they have a few options: sink it, bury it or slice it.

On the west coast, Barrett-Lennard said whale carcasses are sometimes towed out to sea and weighed down with old train wheels. Once sunk, they provide a delightful buffet for other sea creatures.

Another option is to dig a whale-sized pit and bury the mammal, although oil from the decomposing blubber will leach into the soil.

The most intensive option would also provide the most reward — skinning the whale and preserving the bones which could then be put on display. But to do that, said Barrett-Lennard, a team would have to cut off 60-some tons of skin, blubber and muscle before treating the bones.

“That would be great if they do it,” said Barrett-Lennard. “Blue whale skeletons are rare.”

In the mean time, the carcass doesn’t pose much of a hazard beyond stinking to high heaven, said Barrett-Lennard. There are some diseases that can be passed from whales to humans, through it’s generally good advice to not get too up close and personal with a corpse of any variety.

Whatever coarse of action the towns take, blowing the carcasses up is a demonstrably bad idea.